


Songs for a Dying Planet

by chaletian



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Gen, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-23
Updated: 2011-04-23
Packaged: 2017-10-18 14:10:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaletian/pseuds/chaletian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She lies there, and listens to their deaths.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Songs for a Dying Planet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cm (mumblemutter)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mumblemutter/gifts).
  * Inspired by [There Goes (The Neighborhood)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/72924) by [cm (mumblemutter)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mumblemutter/pseuds/cm). 



 

 

Linea holds on to the box, small and silver and shining. She’s never been sure how it survived, never been sure how it overcame the impossible odds of the Enterprise’s destruction to end up in her father’s salvage scow. She knows she should hand it in. She knows it can’t be hers to keep, and she promises, every day, that she’ll take it to the colony authorities, hand it over to someone on the Governor’s staff, say that she found it and it might be important. She promised that the day she worked out what it was, the day she worked out what it said, the day she worked out what it meant, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that. She’s promised it for a string of days, one after the other, a necklace of days that could reach round their city.

 

She doesn’t take it to the Governor.

 

It’s hers.

 

 _“Stardate 4524.8. Who in the goddamn hell invented the tribble? It’s not bad enough we have to sail around in this tin can with aliens taking a pop at us every week, but we’ve gotta have tribbles? What the hell even is a tribble? Nothing like I’ve ever seen! And Klingons! This place is gonna be the death of me.”_

 

She’s researched Dr McCoy. He was from Earth, a place called Georgia in the United States of America, and he was the medical officer on Enterprise.  She even contacted the Federation, said she was doing a school project, and they send her a holovid of the sickbay. McCoy’s treating two men with a dermal regenerator. The notes to the holovid say the men are Lieutenant Sulu and Ensign Chekov. She knows about them.

 

 _“Stardate 4216.4. Well, I have to say it, Sulu and that kid Chekov hosed me but good. Who knew the pointy-eared bastard knew so much about Scotch? I’d turn them over to Jim for gambling, but I hear Chekov’s set up a still. I knew that kid would be trouble.”_

 

Linea sometimes lies in her bed and just listens to the recorder. Just listens, as science flows into frustration into grief into excitement into irritation. She doesn’t have a crush on him, that’s silly. He was old and now he’s dead.

 

They’re all dead.

 

 _“Stardate 4565.4. I don’t know how to fix this. I’ve tried every damn test I can think of. Never thought I’d say it, but I wish Spock were still – y’know. Spock. Could’ve used him on this. Tried to get Holborn talking, tell me what was on the planet, but all I got was the usual. Not himself. Thought he was gonna cry.”_

 

She listens to the last messages over and over. One day she bunks off school, and goes to her cave, the one she hasn’t told anyone about. It’s hot, hotter than she knows it is on earth, but the cave is damp and cool, fern-like fronds overhanging the entrance, and she lies in the dirt, hands clasped over her tunic, and listens to the last messages. It’s like a vid, only better, and if it feels weird that it’s real, well, that’s okay.

 

 _“Stardate 4558.2. Lieutenant Montgomery Scott presented today with what I took at first to be psychological symptoms. He said he was, quote, not me. Crazy thing is, the computer agreed with him. Every part of him was fine, but the computer wouldn’t identify him. I’m concerned about Lt Scott’s behaviour, and prescribed Reduxin 5mg daily. I’ll review him tomorrow. I requested that someone from Engineering check out the computer system. Goddamn computers.”_

 

Scott – Scotty, they call him; he’s in the earlier recordings; sometimes they play poker and Linea gets used to their names (Scotty can’t play too well and once lost an admiral’s dog which McCoy finds hilarious and very worrying) – is the first, but not the last. By no means is the last. Linea can name them all, in order, like presidents or kings. Scott. Spock. Hamley. Uhura. Gaila. Nashvili. Patel. Name after name, as McCoy tries to fix it.

 

 _“Stardate 4560.0. I’ve been over every scrap of data from the away mission; Jim too. We can’t find a thing that stands out. Not biological, chemical, electrical, nothing. Nothing we can see, anyway. Might not even have been that mission. Scotty wasn’t on it, or Spock. Huh, wouldn’t that be something, if we finally did die from space spores. I hate space. Shoulda stayed in Georgia, stead of running away to doctor on a space ship. Don’t know what I was thinking. Jocelyn’s fault. Shoulda been a better husband. Oh, Joanna, baby.”_

 

She feels jealous of Joanna McCoy. She lies in the cave listening to the recordings, hands clasping harder and harder, and she can feel the pounding of her heart.

 

 _“Stardate 4564.2. Starfleet’s coming up empty.  I don’t- we’ll crack this. We always do. Captain James T Kirk and the Enterprise. We saved Earth, we can sure as hell save our own damn ship. Jim’s finding it hard, with the crew- well, there’s not a whole lot we can do with them, not as they are. We’re trying our best. We’ll find something.”_

 

But they don’t, they don’t, they don’t, and Linea closes her eyes and breathes, and listens to the recordings. She feels alive, like she’s connected the earth and the earth to her and she listens to their deaths.

 

 _“Stardate 4567.8. Well, thish ish... this is it. Always knew I’d go like this, vacuum of space. Jim’s set the auto-destruct. We don’t know what this is. Can’t identify it. Fuck, that’s kinda funny. Can’t identify it. Can’t sht- stop it. And we can’t let it do this somewhere else. This ship- I should feel something more, y’know? All these people, and I’ve looked after them so long, and it ends like this and I should feel something, but I guess, Jeez, I don’t feel like myself. ‘Cept I do, don’t feel any different to usual, except this, listen to this, okay? Computer, identify me, please. You hear that? Subject un-goddamn-identifiable. Crap, who am I even talking to? What is the fucking point?”_

 

Afterwards, Linea brushes the dust off her tunic, and wanders back home, the silver box tucked in her pocket. She gets a drink from the fountain, and waves to Ellia Hendry and her baby. She’s nearly home when Jonno, her brother, appears and she catches his arm, because he looks scared, like he might cry, and she’s never seen her big brother like that.

 

“What’s wrong, Jonno?” she asks, and Jonno looks at her, like he’s sad.

 

“I—I don’t feel right,” he says, and Linea knows, she knows, and her hand tightens on the box, small and silver and shiny, and so heavy in her pocket; the box that’s hers and that she promised to return but never did.

 

“Jonno...” she says, he and shrugs off her hand.

 

A tear appears, then another, and Jonno says, “I don’t feel like myself.”


End file.
